Jeb Bush Thinks It Would Be ‘Powerful’ Statement If Nobody Voted This Year

Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush during a campaign stop in Derry, N.H., Tuesday, Jan. 5, 2016. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)
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Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush (R) has a bright idea for social change: don’t vote for the presidency.

Bush told reporters Thursday that he won’t vote for Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton, and that it would send quite a statement if no one else did either, CNN reported.

Following his speech at Harvard’s Kennedy School, Bush cleared up a few things about some recent news stories on his support for Libertarian presidential nominee Gary Johnson.

Some outlets reported that Bush was privately supporting Johnson, and The New York Daily News reported he’d hinted at his support for Johnson publicly at a Manhattan Institute event this week, mouthing the Libertarian’s name to someone who said he didn’t want to vote for either Trump or Clinton. Bush denied that report, though.

“I don’t think so,” Bush said when reporters asked if he had done that, according to CNN.

Bush said that he’s “at peace” with his decision on who to vote for, even though he refused to disclose who that would be. He did say that it would not be Clinton or Trump. When reporters asked what would happen if everyone followed his lead, Bush took it a step further.

“Well, if everybody didn’t vote, that would be a pretty powerful political statement, wouldn’t it?” Bush said, according to CNN.

He also addressed a previous report that his father, former President George H.W. Bush, was going to support Clinton, saying that he found it “inappropriate” that someone would repeat what his “frail” father said at a private event.

“I thought it was a little inappropriate for a person to overhear a frail, 92-year-old man, in a private setting, at a reception for the Points of Light foundation—which focuses on volunteerism—to hear this and immediately go on Facebook and put it on there and then go on national television and not even show up at the board meeting,” he said, according to CNN. “I thought that was inappropriate.”

Bush was most likely referencing Robert Kennedy’s daughter, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, who spilled the beans about the elder Bush’s plans on Facebook.

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Notable Replies

  1. “Well, if everybody didn’t vote, that would be a pretty powerful political statement, wouldn’t it?”

    Disqualifying forever.

  2. Voting should be like sex I guess. If you can’t sleep with Kate Upton, well, you just shouldn’t be sleeping with anyone else I suppose.

  3. Nothing like “low energy” sour grapes, JEB!.
    They’re usually destined to become raisins, so stay out of the sun…

  4. I’m ashamed to admit I used to think he was the smart one.

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